Tribes and Empires comes full circle to air on Hunan TV

After all the fuss about the drama airing and then not airing on Hunan TV, Tribes and Empires: Storm of Prophecy which is as the last leg of its run on major websites iQiYi, Youku and Tencent finds itself returning to the television network that let it go in the first place.

Starting from December 29, Hunan TV will air four episodes of Tribes and Empires every morning on the slot that airs much-loved reruns. It's certainly not normal for Hunan TV to purchase exclusive rights to a drama only to pass on it afterwards and many speculated that it was due to issues on the number of episodes or worse, the quality of the drama itself. Given its expansive story and extensive characterizations, the production team wanted the drama to air in its entirety, yet eight episodes focusing on just the child actors alone would be too big a gamble for a top network like Hunan TV which is known for editing dramas to their own liking. So really, it's almost no surprise that it didn't work out.

Nevertheless, the show has been receiving heaps of praise since its premiere and it looks like Hunan TV has decided to capitalize on it by securing the rebroadcast rights. Just my two cents, the young cast in this are fantastic and I'm so glad that their scenes stayed. I also find it crazily uncanny in a good way to see how much the young cast actually resembled their adult counterparts.

7 comments:

So does this mean I'd be able to see T&E on youtube? There's quite a lot of cdramas on yt and it's perplexing and annoying that such a popular drama passed on this platform that allows easier access for international audience.

So now it's doing so well suddenly Hunan want to air it after letting it go in the first place? The way they treated it in the first place caused so much speculation and undeserved bad rumours about the production :-/ By morning slot do they mean breakfast time because that doesn't really seem appropriate for this type of show? Hopefully they don't chop it up badly like some of their other dramas.

It seems like they didn't get the full refund for not airing the drama and just wants to air it as quick as possible now that it gets good response. The morning time slot is usually only watched by the older generation and I doubt they will be interested in this kind of fantasy show.

I started this drama last week and yes the story can be slow but so goddamn important. Everyone is superb in this drama, except prince Lu's acting (cringe) and the grownup version Su Yu Ning always seems out of place to me. I liked the child counterpart of her a lot better.